I can cure

I met an unpleasant little man this weekend.

He pushed his pinched face deep into my space and said: “I can cure Miriam.”

“No you can’t.” I have an aversion to secret cures. The real professionals rarely use that word. I

He insisted, and I resisted a tad louder than his insistence. I put both hands up. “Stop, I do not want to hear any cure. I do not want to hear any cure.”

But he did not leave my space, but burrowed in deeper and deeper. Each time he burrowed I answered that I did not want to hear and I increased my volume a tad until finally I was right in his face and very loud, and the house was full of family.

“I do not want to hear your cure, SHUT UP.”

Daughter one arrived and drug me off before I did violence to the unpleasant little man. I was full of adrenaline and ready to leave. “Go for a walk daddy, but don’t be gone too long.”

I cooled down and I understand the little pinched face man said to some one later: “What did I do to irritate Dave, we were just visiting?”

I sat on a lawn chair and my wonderful daughters brought me two plates of food and 5 of deserts, but it will still take a few days for the adrenaline to seep out.

These People who prey on families of the ill and infirmed and insist that they have a secret (always not from “regular doctors”) way to cure disease, providing you would pass a bit of green their way really anger me. I don’t want to hear any cures just now, particularly private ones, herbs or otherwise. Help me cope but don’t offer way out cures, please.

A good friend’s wife had MS. People came out of the wood work with all sorts of cures (all involving exchange of cash and trinkets). “I hate it when people try to pray on my misfortune,” she declared.

I am with her.